SCGB Historical Snow reports

Are these figures based on official snow stats from the resort? I skied
Verbier early December 01/02 and there was no snow from the mid mountain
down, however the historical reports say the snow level on the lower slopes
varied between 21 and 30cm for the 1st 3 weeks of December!

Regards,

Greg

On Tue, 29 Jul 2003 10:25:02 GMT, Greg Hilton wrote:

Are these figures based on official snow stats from the resort?

Yes. Of course, for repped resorts, that information is also included
on the daily snow report.

I skied
Verbier early December 01/02 and there was no snow from the mid mountain
down, however the historical reports say the snow level on the lower slopes
varied between 21 and 30cm for the 1st 3 weeks of December!

You'd need to know _exactly_ where the snow depth is measured. It's
part of the rep's responsibilty to let the club know if the resort are
telling porkies, so we would normally be aware of their measuring
points. (No, I've not repped there, so don't know).

Generally, the quoted figure is _not_ the depth you'd expect to find
in the middle of a piste, so it's quite possible to have 20cm of snow
at the measuring point but nothing at all on the pistes.

On Tue, 29 Jul 2003 11:13:28 GMT, Greg Hilton wrote:


Generally, the quoted figure is _not_ the depth you'd expect to find
in the middle of a piste, so it's quite possible to have 20cm of snow
at the measuring point but nothing at all on the pistes.


So basically sod all use in working out wether somewhere will have good
skiing early season then.

Not at all. If you've got a weekly average of less than 30-40cm at
lower levels, I would have thought it quite obvious it's not going to
be decent skiing back to the resort, even if the runs are technically
open.

I guess there is nothing the SCGB can do about this, and it's a good start
showing this info, but it needs some more useful data, like "on piste
depth" or somesuch??

And how would you suggest we collect that? The daily reports do
include the state of resort runs (good, fair, poor, wet, slushy, etc.
etc.), which is judged by the rep on the day, but it would be
difficult to work up a simple chart to show this information on a
week-by-week basis...

--
Ace in Alsace - bruce dot rogers at roche dot com
Ski Club of Great Britain http://www.skiclub.co.uk
All opinions expressed are personal and in no way represent those of the Ski Club.

Ace wrote in news:bcmcivct6d39fr0b6fqjkplaapg25h2oeo@
4ax.com:

And how would you suggest we collect that? The daily reports do
include the state of resort runs (good, fair, poor, wet, slushy, etc.

How about % of lower/middle/upper runs open?

Regards,

Greg

On Tue, 29 Jul 2003 12:02:12 GMT, Greg Hilton wrote:

Ace wrote in news:bcmcivct6d39fr0b6fqjkplaapg25h2oeo@
4ax.com:

And how would you suggest we collect that? The daily reports do
include the state of resort runs (good, fair, poor, wet, slushy, etc.

How about % of lower/middle/upper runs open?

Nice idea, but the data is not available. I agree that it would be
nice, but even in the resort you can't normally get that level of
detail - the best that's available is the overall number of runs open
- some resorts may split this by colour, but it still wouldn't help.

And if one tried to implement it, you'd have to have an accepted
definition of lower/middle/upper...

No, I think the upper and lower depths as reported and available in
graphical form _do_ give a very good representation and don't really
need to be improved upon.

YMMV :-}

--
Ace in Alsace - bruce dot rogers at roche dot com
Ski Club of Great Britain http://www.skiclub.co.uk
All opinions expressed are personal and in no way represent those of the Ski Club.

In message , Ace
writes

showing this info, but it needs some more useful data, like "on piste
depth" or somesuch??

And how would you suggest we collect that?

Before it snows you map the sizes and locations of some selected rocks.
If a rock's covered, the snow must be at least so deep. Then you simply
count the rocks to see how deep it is.

To automate the process you'd need spycams and some
not-too-sophisticated software. Obviously it's important the locals
don't find the spycams, because then they could fake their snow depth by
removing your rocks...

--
Sue ];(